Norm Ornstein from the American Enterprise Institute tells WSJ's Jerry Seib why the Senate has changed and looks ahead to which party might win control after the 2014 midterms.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

the ... this is Jerry side with the Wall Street Journal ... A Tweedy Congress near meltdown in the Senate to talk about all were happy the Jordan or more steam congressional scholar political scientists from the American Enterprise Institute thanks for being with us always a pleasure ... so it's a city near meltdown in the Senate big fight over ... a confirmation of presidential appointees averted the last minute with a bipartisan deal that avoided changing ... the Senate rules which would then earthquake ... so the question going forward is simple how long does this bipartisanship this comedy in the Senate last ... we may see it on some issues for awhile of but not for all that long ... the big problem is ... when Congress goes away in a couple of weeks for August ... then comes back in September ... here's what they have on the agenda ... we have ... every appropriations bill ... although portions of government defense and domestic ... that we think of this government other than the big ... social insurance slashing firemen programs ... they're all for fiscal year that begins October one ... and we know that there is an enormous Gulf ... between the bills that the horses eat surpassing worth considering ... and with the Senate is doing ... and it's not a nice Libor tubal go because the house was suspend last across the board ... the house is taken to deal with a workout ... when we got the sequester's ... in two thousand and eleven ... and doubled or tripled on ... they decided to pass bills that ... would balance the budget in ten years ... but also ... to shuffle money from the discretionary domestic account ... to the defense account ... so we're talking about ... by any standard draconian cuts ... and the Senate is trying to stay within the sequester numbers and move some money around ... but don't normally you'd say alright to split the difference you will find some way to work around it ... the House Republicans are evident that this is their bond ... was yellow top of that another argument about whether to raise the government's debt ceiling ... that in some fairly sensitive judicial nominations D C Circuit Court of Appeals nominations those are the kinds of things that have brought the partisan divides into sharp relief in the past ... they probably will again in ... a note on about it and we already know with ... what appears to be the debt limit being reach sometime around the first of November ... of that the House Republicans again ... have created a list of demands hostages that they're going to hold ... as if the debt limit of the United States was something that if they agree to expand it ... um is a gift to the president ... but it includes ... the Ryan program on Medicare in a number of other things ... and that the president is not to give the most things and that their leaders ... who say we played this game before we want to do it again ... are fairly much powerless ... the deal that they work in the Senate ... is on executive nominations ... not judicial nominations ... and there's little doll that were to see more filibusters ... of with these three D C Court of Appeals nominees ... the question is whether ... a half dozen Republicans ... who work together to avert this last catastrophe ... decide ... to try and cut some kind of a deal to avoid another meltdown in the merged maybe as the swing bloc that can make things happen in the sense ... that we're already seeing some serious disgruntlement on their part with Mitch McConnell is leadership there was a rancorous meeting were McConnell undercut the ... agreement that it made ... even though he had been kept a wearable was going on ... said he could do better which was ... basically not the case ... ah ... but ... you know you can imagine ... John McCain and some others going to Harry Reid and saying ... will tell you what you got three nominees for the DC Court of Appeals ... we'll hope for clean Assurant two of them ... you gotta give us won ... you know that's not the way it should be done but ... you know the sacrificial lamb process ... is someone we may see its biggest ever for it if ... I'm blessed that back from this in and talk about the Senate where it is right you you and I were part of the small group conversation with the Democratic majority leader Harry Reid this week ... asked him a question of who's cute now which is ... how is it that the Senate which used to be ... above the passions of the moment and place for bipartisanship emerge more easily than the house ... was a change so much and watched ... in awe I wrote a ... reflected after that meeting that we have with your ear even wrote a piece this week ... that basically said the Senate's unlike any other comparable parliamentary body ... they all have rules they all have restrictions ... but the main lessons ... everything in the Senate is done by unanimous consent ... it's the individuals that manner and what it means is ... the norms matter more than the rules ... you got to find ways in some instances to get all one hundred goal ... or your disrupted ... but you also have to have a general understanding ... that there are limits ... in the last six or seven years ... the norms of the breach ... and ... that's what led to ... Bill Frist when he was the majority leader of the Republican majority leader ... and Democrats were of blocking a bunch of appeals court nominees ... to fret not a nuclear option a much more severe was saying this at this same play we saw this and that we saw this week ... we had a gang of fourteen seven senators on each side what mattered was the seven Democrats coming together and saying ... tell you wanna ... give us a couple a sacrificial lambs ... and a light cameras and a restore normalcy ... but then we saw a sharp increase in and normalcy ... once Brock Obama became president even before that when the Democrats took back the majority in ... two thousand and six two thousand and seven ... with filibusters be used on everything the routine matters ... as weapons of mass destruction ... the problem is not the rule including the filibuster is the same role for the last ... thirty years and for most the time it worked until the norms were breached ... the question now is can you restore the old ones of the Senate ... the move the other day D ... led by McCain bipartisan effort ... negotiation ... is a step towards normalcy ... the ball ... remains in Mitch McConnell score ... and then ... a question of whether McConnell ... ratchets up again ... a number of Republican senators say enough is enough but that is this the question of politics and political alignments and that that the sorting out of the country into more red and blue states for is the question personalities and leaders ... it's both ... that's more than that to ... it's that ... we have a permanent campaign that has overwhelmed everything ... majorities can change in every election clean this next one coming up ... and ... it's working with people on the other side of the aisle ... has now become akin to sleeping with the enemy instead of ... the way you do business to solve problems ... you put that together with the fact that we have the sharp polarization ... and it's not symmetric its asymmetric the Republicans of move much more sharply to the right ... and they're now dominated by their primaries its own fear of being primaries ... and then ... the lack of chemistry between Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid ... and now ... McConnell fearing being primary himself ... and you've got a witches brew that it does not lead to generally positive results well and so it were talkin about a ... the prospect of more political polarization to be closer to twenty fourteen which is not that far off anyway ... suggest this fall is the last hope to do anything you in the Senate until you get to the twenty fourteen free zapped I fear that that's the case and and of course much that would get through the Senate even if you could overcome this ... goes nowhere in the house ... unless you have overwhelming majorities ... but there are few people to keep an eye on ... Bob Corker of Tennessee has become ... one of the real problem solvers here ... it engaged in a host of Erie is ... to try and move the country ahead ... McCain is move back to the role of iconic class ... and if those two can bring along ... some of their friends and allies who have a little bit more independence ... Lindsey Graham who was up but who basically still wants to do the right thing ... Lisa Murkowski of Alaska Susan Collins and mean ... and you've got ... a dozen others who potentially could be a part of that ... if they decide enough is enough ... we may see something different ... but the house has a different matter ... and its the hols this could lead to these confrontations over ... appropriations which would probably mean a shutdown of the government or parts of that ... Iran October one ... and another crazy confrontation over the debt limit ... and I'm not sure that there's much of anything or any group of members there ... without leadership from speak urbane or that would probably cost him his speaker sure ... that'll take us away from the collision course so final question you mentioned a couple times those twenty fourteen elections yes um don't ... loom larger and larger as we get closer obviously at this point ... who use its gonna be running the Senate after those ... at that turned the decision made by the very popular former governor Democratic governor of Montana Brian Schweitzer not to run for that open seat ... it really increase the odds the Republicans could take a majority they need to win six seats net ... twenty three Democrats up only ten Republicans ... the odds are close to even their not quite there for the Republicans because they may ... as they did last time and time before self destruct in a number of nomination ... contests ... but they've got a shot at ... now I think that the problem the other problem that we have pure with the Senate headache that we have pure insanity is ... only ten Republican seats are up almost all of them incumbents running ... he had ... Saxby Chambliss has ... decided to retire ... but in the other cases ... the fear of being primer With ... pushes them to the right ... is that two top Senate Leaders Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn ... is Lamar Alexander of Tennessee ... now it's Mike Enzi in Colorado ... and at least a couple of those Alexander in NZ are ones you would hope would be ... among ... the group ... trying to find solutions to problems ... that's not likely to be in deliveries after those primaries ... well this political season of a full stop in Washington are reading about I think the fact that with this hope we can get together again as the proceeds ... to ditch effort of course